When clothes is sold via the Internet or using mail-order catalogs, customers do not have the opportunity to try on garmets before ordering and must guess which size they would be in a given manufacturer's clothing line. Various computer graphics systems are offered to assist customers.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,222 discloses a virtual dressing room system (VDRS) for displaying computer-generated images representing clothing on a human body. The VDRS receives a series of contour lines defining the three-dimensional shape of the human body, and a sequence of points defining the two-dimensional shape of the clothing. For each point of the two-dimensional shape, the VDRS identifies a corresponding point on a contour line of the body, and adjusts the point of the two-dimensional shape of the clothing to correspond to the identified point. The VDRS renders the shape of the human body on a display device, and lenders the scaled and adjusted two-dimensional shape of the clothing on the display device to imitate the display of the human body wearing the clothing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,528 discloses a digital dressing room system which allows a customer to select and virtually try on different garment images of the database. The system uses computer graphics to display an image of the customer's body in the garments based on the customer's body measurements. The system's database includes images of human bodies representing a specific “body-type” classification, and images of garmets to be “tried on.” Using the image processing techniques, the system transforms the human body image to reflect the customer's measurements, such as bust, waist, hips and height, and transforms the image of garmets to fit the customer's body. The result is a rendering of a clothing ensemble as it would drape a body with the client's measurements.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,769 discloses a method of manual fashion shopping by a customer using a video device. The method comprises receiving the customer's body measurements, and providing a database including graphic images of clothing items. The database enables the customer to select clothes item among all items for each fashion category. The shopping system determines a size of the customer, and outputs the closest size to the computer screen or printer. For this size, the system generates a virtual mannequin of the customer's body, which shows the customer how a selected fashion will fit and look.
Hence, conventional systems produce computer-generated images showing how a particular garment will look on a particular customer. However, computer-generated images are generated based on mathematical models of image processing and cannot accurately represent human bodies. As a result, the garments ordered by customers do not fit properly and must be returned.
In addition, conventional systems do not consider evaluations made by human models, which try on garments, and/or experts, which are present when models try on garments. Therefore, conventional system cannot pre-select garments suitable for a particular customer based on evaluations by the models and/or experts as to whether a selected garment fits the customer.
Accordingly, in conventional systems, customers have to choose among hundreds of articles corresponding to a particular size, rather than among a much smaller group of articles pre-selected by models and/or experts for a particular type of a customer. As a result, Internet-based clothes shopping becomes slow and cumbersome.
Therefore, there exists a long-felt need for a way to alleviate the difficulties of selling clothes via a telecommunications network such as the Internet.